300536 Major Project in Construction
Assessment Criteria
The Progress Report must show a clear framework of the Thesis Submission outlining the
likely contents to address the specific objectives of the Project. The comprehensiveness of
the review and the creditability of sources of information are necessary for the analysis of
critical and contrasting views on the subject which lead to the possible findings and
conclusions (tacit knowledge) on the subject.
Similarly the assessment of the Thesis Submission will be based under the same seven
headings but with very different weight on each item.
The guidelines for marking of the Progress Report and Thesis Submission are as follows:
Key components/competencies Progress Report Thesis
Submission
1. Framework or outline
(Table of contents)
5 0.5
2. Comprehensiveness 2 2.5
3. Credible sources of information 1 1
4. Critical & contrasting view 1 1
5. Some initial analysis 1 0
6. Findings or conclusions
(Tacit knowledge)
0 2
7 Executive Summary 0 3
Total Marks 10 10
Value toward the final assessment 20% 70%Articulation
Comprehensiveness
In seeking and reviewing information on a subject, comprehensive information is required on
each subject/aspect of the Project. Always start from a broad and comprehensive review
followed by articulating the critical and sometime contrasting views on the subject. The more
comprehensive your review is, the more likely chance that it will lead to more truthful and
useful outcomes.
Credible Sources of Information (Authoritativeness)
Key points must be validated by more than one source. For the progress draft, sources from
newspapers and trade magazines will occasionally be accepted. However specific information
in the final submission must be cited from refereed journal articles and official websites (ie.
parliament [Hansard], government and university sources).
You must attempt to establish the reliability of each key source. For instance, the IPCC
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is a reliable source of information on climate
change; President George W. Bush isn’t. You can still state widely-held, but unreliable
counter-arguments in your literature (from people like George W.!) to indicate the state of
knowledge (or lack) in the general community.
Critical & Contrasting View
A literature review shall ideally contain information both FOR and AGAINST each issue. The
two sides of the argument must be structured so that overall situation is coherent (i.e. you are
providing two sides to an issue).
Information related to a specific problem in the construction industry should reference local
perspectives through regional and sectorial magazines. You can also contrast the specific
perspective with other sections of the industry or with other parts of the world.
Analysis and Findings
Concepts must be coherently related together. The literature review must start from the
general problem that you highlighted in your Project Brief and lead to a specific research
questions and outcomes that you pose in the final section of the literature review.
References
The School’s referencing requirement is the Harvard referencing system (Author, Date). Full
details of referencing systems can be found at: http://library.uws.edu.au/citing.phtml. A full
range of resources for searching and citing references is available at: http://
library.uws.edu.au/training.phtml
It is recommended that students become familiar with the referencing software, such as
RefWorks, available from the UWS Library website - http://library.uws.edu.au/refworks.php?
case=index_as